The Queen's Mate
by OldFashionedGirl95
Summary: Part Two - Through Rabbit and Wolf courtship, Leopard songs, Wiggle rituals, and Centaur oaths, the Queen and her Mate are bonded. Lucy/Carl. For Starbrow.
1. Chapter 1

_The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one._  
- Honore de Balzac

_I could have kissed the very scullery taps. The color of  
My day was like a peacock's chest. In at each sense there stole  
Ripplings and dewy sprinkles of delight that with them drew  
Fine threads of memory through the vibrant thickness of the soul.  
_C. S. Lewis, "The Day With A White Mark."_  
_

_What flame before our chamber door  
__Shines in on love's security?  
__Fiercer than day, its piercing ray  
P__ours round us unendurably.  
__It's Aphrodite's saffron light  
__And Jove's monarchal presence bright  
__And Genius burning through the night  
__The torch of man's futurity.  
_~ C. S. Lewis, "The Small Man Orders His Wedding"

* * *

It was that hour of brightest starlight before the sky began to gray, when even the Trees were asleep and only the Stars still woke, their song too high and clear and constant to really be heard. Lucy hadn't slept yet. She and Carl had been talking by the fire the night before, just beginning to yawn, when Col and Colin came in to say that Rose was calving and Father still wasn't home from Galma, but he'd thought it would be twins, and would Queen Lucy mind terribly—?

She did not mind, but by the time Col brought a kettle of hot water to the barn, her patience was thin from Colin's hovering questions, and she sent the boys to bed. Carl remained to hold the lantern and hand her hot rags and press hard on the cow's belly when needed, as Lucy worked, standing on a box, arm-deep in cow. It was, as suspected, twins—identical, for they were tangled together in a single sack—and breech. As she worked, she kept up a steady stream of soft, soothing words, talking until she didn't know what she said, soothed herself by the quiet breathing and chewing of the other four cows in the barn or the whuffling snort of one of the horses in a snatch of sleep. It was hours before the first calf—a beautiful red heifer—was born. Carl hung the lantern on a nail, washed Rose's udder, and got the calf to suck by the time Lucy coaxed the second one out.

She collapsed then on a heap of hay and watched him guide the newborn to its mother, steadying it when it wabbled on spraddly legs, and nudging Rose's swollen teat to its mouth. At first it tried to suck its own tongue, but at last both had drunk and curled up next to their mother—all knobbly legs and tiny hooves, but two of the prettiest red heifer calves Lucy had seen.

"You're all bloody," said Carl, coming to help her up and steady her as he had the newborn calves. She looked down. Her skirt was knotted up and straw stuck to the manure stains, her hair was coming unbraided, and afterbirth was smeared up and down her arms.

He steered her across the yard and around the springtime mudholes, stopping at the well to pump her some water; she splashed her arms and face (wondering vaguely how streaks of muck ended up on the back of her neck) and the worst of her skirt. She followed him, yawning, into the Keep, and kicked her boots off in the lean-to.

"Go on upstairs," he whispered, so as not to wake Nils, the brownie, who slept between the woodbox and the chimney. He eased the stove open, poked a sulfur stick into the ashes of the banked fire, lit a candle, and handed it to her.

"'Mm too tired to sleep."

"I know. You can put on something dry—grab one of my old tunics—and I'll bring you some tea."

She stumbled up the stairs, stepping wide—even with care, the treads creaked loud enough to wake the dead. Behind her, she heard Carl stirring up the fire. She climbed past the second floor, with the lord and lady's bedchamber and Lady Branwen's workroom, past the third floor, with the girls' and boys' sleeping quarters, and so to the attic, where Carl had partitioned off a corner for himself so he could study in the evenings. Shutting the door, she set the candle on his desk and looked around until she found one of his old tunics, of indiscriminate color; her own bloomers, upon candlelight inspection, seemed mostly clean. Her soiled dress she turned inside out and rolled up; then she reached for the candle, but a sheet of paper scattered with her name caught her eye. She paused. Many lines were scratched and scribbled out.

* * *

Dearest Lucy

Beloved Queen

_give her a clock? _  
_would she know the custom?_  
_letter? meeting?_

_Carl, son of Carl, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, to Lucy, Queen of Narnia, Duchess of Warrens and Plains, Keeper of the Cordial, Finder of the Stone Knife, and Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Lion._

Beloved Lucy.

Four moons have

Four times hath the moon

_We met in sleep of winter past and it was as if we met anew, and with the wakening year was I too awakened, so that I what I thought ere then was love was but palest shadow of the __ardor I feel now._

Will you

Wilt thou be wedded unto me?

Lucy, Queen of my Heart,

Finder of love

_My lady,_

_I am a simple man. My mother comes of fine Archen breeding and all my life has tried to teach me high courtly manners. Yet you know that I grew to manhood in Narnia, and I am more at ease in the fields and forests of my land, stalking game or sowing crops._

_My lady, I have no Calormene poetry to offer you. I am not skilled in fine speech. I am a knight, and a farmer, and I love you._

(Then, scrawled in larger letters—)

_Can't say that, either. She's four years older than I, and Lionsakes, she's a Queen and ought to marry a duke or a prince or a king. Oh, Aslan. Even the Lion loves her especially. She let me kiss her in the barn last wintersleep, but—mane and whiskers and unsheathed claws—she deserves better, even if I hunger for her._

* * *

"Lucy? Are you dressed?" came the whisper from the other side of the door. "Do you want any tea?"

"Carl?" Her voice sounded queer and far away to her own ears.

"May I come in?"

She opened the door, her mind a storm of thoughts too overlapped to be uttered; he entered with a cup of tea and set it on the desk..

"Lucy, what's wrong?" For she stood motionless, still holding the paper. "Oh. Oh." He sank onto the bed, and buried his face in his hands. "You weren't intended—I wasn't—Forgive me, Queen Lucy."

Had he changed his mind? She sat beside him and pulled his hand away. "Carl."

"I know. I know. You've dozens of suitors and Prince Corin adores you and even the old Duke of Diness—"

"The Duke of Diness," she said decidedly, "is a nasty old man. Corin is hardly more than a boy." She took his other hand in hers and looked down at them—large, warm, farmer's hands, able to cradle new-hatched chicks or draw a longbow or coax a wild horse to follow. She looked up, and he was watching her. "I don't want dozens of suitors. I never did. You know that, don't you? I never understood what anyone was on about—Susan and Peter had their hearts broken enough times to make me stay clear—but Carl, I love you."

"I—I wanted to write you poetry or do some romantic deed for you—and I'm sorry, it's darknight and you need to sleep, you've been up all night—"

She laid her fingers against his lips. "It's the sweetest thing anyone has written for me—yes, just as it is. Go on. Please? Ask me."

He blinked at her, owly in the flickering light. Then he slid off the bed and knelt. "Lucy, my Queen, fellow Knight of the Lion—"

She nodded eager encouragement.

"Marry me?"

"I thought you would_ never_ ask."

They were interrupted by a rap at the door and a, "It's past chore-time already and Mother wants to know if 'thou art ill.'" The door opened and Molly's head poked in, braids swinging. "Mother says—oh." Swiftly she took in Carl's tunic, the smell of the filthy dress in the corner—and the bedcovers, still tucked snugly around the mattress. All she said was,

"Heifer or bull?"

"Twin heifers," said Lucy, feeling flustered and not looking at Carl.

"Well, the rest of them are bawling to be milked, so get yourself out to the barn, Sir Knight. It's nigh on sunup."

Chagrined, he hurried out, and Molly raised her eyebrows at Lucy. "I expect you want to borrow one of Elinda's old frocks before you go down."

"I—yes. Thank you." Meekly, she followed the fourteen-year-old girl out of Carl's room.

* * *

Even with the borrowed dress, little escaped Lady Branwen's sharp notice. "Queen Lucy! Didst sleep a wink?" She was frying hotcakes for breakfast with one hand and stirring eggs with the other, and the sizzling smells filled the kitchen .

A barely-contained yawn answered for Lucy as she flopped onto a bench. "Nay, Lady Branwen, for Carl and I delivered Rose's calves in darknight—and lovelier twin heifers I have yet to see."

Lady Branwen pursed her lips but refrained from saying anything—even after fifteen years in Narnia she still balked at the thought of a Queen wading around in barn muck. "The basin is new-filled, if thou wishest to wash."

Lucy took that as more than mild suggestion and went to the basin, where she scrubbed her arms and hands and especially fingernails. She splashed water on her face and rubbed the dust out of her eyes, undid her hair and combed out the straw and rebraided it; then she carried the basin to the door and dashed out the water, refilling it at the pump.

Lady Branwen would not allow her to help with breakfast, and there was no reason for her to go to the barn, for even with Lord Bearsclaw away in Galma to trade yearling bulls for a new milch cow, the boys could do the chores handily, so she sat at the kitchen table, fidgeting with excitement. Never had it taken so long to do the milking.

Little Emma came down the stairs, dragging a blanket, and climbed up on Lucy's lap. "Tell me a 'tory, Queen Lucy."

Lucy pulled the trailing blanket up from the floor and tucked it about Emma. "A story?" She hummed to herself a moment and then said, "This is a story that begins with Rabbits. . . ."

Rabbits, of course, come into many of the best stories, and Emma was a perfect audience for this one of Queen Lucy's time among the Great Warrens when she was just a little girl herself—a tale of a Rabbit named Benjamin and his adventures during the Long Winter, outwitting the evil Tod Fox. "There is always something happening in the Great Warrens," she said, finishing, "for all the Rabbits have many children and there is always someone to play with."

Just then the door banged open and in came the boys, Dan talking at the top of his voice. "Come see the new calves, Ma! They're all red and fuzzy and have stars on their heads and—"

"My child, do not _ma_ me. I am certain they are charming, and I shall come see them directly after breakfast, but Queen Lucy is hungry and the hotcakes are ready. Wash thy hands."

Grumbling, he went to the washbasin. Nate trailed behind him, and Col and Colin each set down a milk bucket, their muddy boots clunking across the floor. Last, Carl came in, also lugging a bucket, and paused in the doorway to give Lucy the _loveliest_ smile. Lady Branwen turned from chasing the twins off her clean kitchen floor, only to see Lucy and Carl, smiling at each other as if they were the only two in the kitchen.

For a moment—just a moment, mind you—she said nothing, looking between them with an odd expression on her face as though she were deciding whether to smile or scold. Then, "What else happed in the night?"

Carl looked around, blinked, and set the milk down. "Mother," he said, coming to take Lucy's hand, "Lucy and I are to be wed."

"Lion's blessing upon you, my children," she said, falling back on the traditional response and a smile. "When do you intend—?"

They grinned at each other. "Does tomorrow suit?"

It took a little talking to convince her that no, the Queen was not with child, and no, there was no particular reason to hurry the wedding along—they'd simply gotten matters settled and wanted to be married as soon as humanly possible. (They left out the parts with the kissing and Carl's borrowed tunic and over an hour in the attic; no need to further discomfit Branwen.) But after breakfast, when Carl and the boys went out to finish the spring planting, when Molly and Emma finished washing the dishes and went upstairs to make the beds, and Lucy rose to go home, Lady Branwen stopped her with an upraised hand.

"Your Majesty, might I have a word?"

Lucy subsided back into her seat. Usually Lady Branwen was better about calling her at least only _Queen Lucy_, and she'd finally stopped standing on ceremony. But formality ought to be met with formality, Susan always said, and Lucy straightened an inch. "Certainly, Lady Bearsclaw. What is it?"

Branwen's eyes met hers, and they were not so warm as they had been the day before. "Carl would do anything for you, his Queen."

There was something terribly important hidden in those carefully deferential words, but when Lucy reached for the meaning, she floundered and could not grasp it. "What do you mean, Lady Bearsclaw?" she said, carefully deferring back.

"Tis not my place, Your Majesty, to deny you aught you wish for. Even my eldest son."

Lucy stared helplessly at her, still not understanding. Lady Branwen bowed her head, and the moment passed.

"Thou'rt weary from thy night's labor," said Lady Branwen, rising from the board, "and undoubtedly wishest to return home, while I have given my word to go and admire the new young. Shall I show thee out?"

"Yes, by your grace," said Lucy, feeling very flustered by Branwen's sudden coldness and longing to get away and think about it all. She took up her satchel with the soiled dress and following the lady to the barn, where Branwen thanked her cordially for her assistance with the calves and watched her saddle Ashtiel and swing herself aboard.

She looked back, as she always did, after the first smooth strides away. Carl was in the far field, across the firth and hidden by the barn, but Lady Branwen stood in the barn door, unsmiling, and did not return her wave. Ashtiel cantered all the way home, and Lucy waved distractedly at the Narnians she passed. What did Lady Branwen mean? When she arrived, she was glad, that time, to leave her mount with the groom and go straight inside. Susan was up to her wrists in soft brown soap, overseeing the spring production, when Lucy rushed in.

"Lucy!" She pushed a strand of hair out of her face with her wrist. "Good news?"

Lucy pushed away Lady Branwen's puzzling words for later, when they could speak more privately. "Yes! The best news! Sir Carl and I are getting married!"

"_Oh!_" Lucy was caught up in a very wet, soapy embrace and Susan made a high-pitched sort of noise into her neck. Then she cleared her throat, lifted her head up to look at Lucy once more, and said, "I am overjoyed, my sister." Another happy squeeze, and Lucy was inundated with kisses and well wishes from the others in the room.

"Lion's blessing on you, my children," piped Mrs. Twinkletacks from somewhere above Lucy's knees, as Bleu the Hound jumped, trying to bestow sloppy kisses on Lucy's face.

"The moment I wash the soap from my hands," said Susan, doing so, "I'll fetch my notes, and you can get started straightaway on the list."

"List?" she echoed, but any answer was lost in the happy chaos.

* * *

Susan's notes turned out to be multiple pages filled with her fine, old-fashioned script. "You ought to read this first," she said, handing Lucy the first page. "It is from Queen Aletha's diary, relatively early in her marriage."

"Queen Aletha before the winter? King Frank the Lost's mother?"

"Yes."

* * *

_Today I conversed long with the Centaur Timeseer of Narnian custom and traditions. He told me of the four rulers in Cair Paravel of old, of King Shale and Queen Wren, King Birk and Queen Silva. No man hath espied Cair Paravel for nigh on a hundredyear, and even Timeseer knoweth not whether in truth that place standeth still, as the song sayeth,_

on isle near to lion's land  
between the sea and shingled strand.

_The Centaurs say that island hath been hid by the Great Lion, that no more blood may be shed in its ancient halls. I would I might inquire of the spirit of the Great River, for he should surely know more, but in these latter days is he become taciturn and withdrawn. The Trees say he lieth most oft in the deepest regions of his bed, but more than that, or how one might find and speak with him, they will not say. _

_As I learn of these things, I cannot but think how different it might have been, for my lord disdained the customs of the Beasts and Birds when we were wed, with naught but the Gretna Green ceremony and the Archen handfasting to join us. For he contemned even the purification of Wood and Water, which already I then knew to be customary of old, saying 'twas but rough and uncouth magic . . ._

_Of old was Midsummer Day and the Eve before thought to be a time of great abundance, and so too the night that a sovereign was wed; for this reason were Shale and Birk wedded to Wren and Silva on Midsummer Day of old, that the fecund blessing on the land might be of increased virtue. But the Hamadryads of the Elder Trees add to this that ere they came together as man and wife, did they first complete the bondings of water and land, beast and bird, cave and marsh, remaining all that time apart. Only when they had completed the ceremony of Gretna Green did they come together, and it was believed that by this act did they add yet more to the increase of that year, and in sooth was it exceedingly fruitful both in crops and children._

_When I learned of this, then I could not but wonder if it is for this that my union with my lord beareth no fruit. Couldst thou, O Aslan, do such a thing unto me? Yet who can say what are or are not the deeds of the Lion? for hath he been truly seen in Narnia this hundredyear?_

_Nay, I cannot believe such a thing of the holy Lion. In sooth, my lord calleth me rarely to his chamber, and oft 'tis in the wrong moonday. If he only cared to know, perhaps he should be less wroth at my failure. But he commandeth me to remain silent . . ._

* * *

Lucy read on until she could no longer see through the tears brimming in her eyes for the lonely Queen, childless and unloved by her husband, wondering if even Aslan had forgotten her. "Where did this come from?"

"Queen Aletha sent her papers with her friend, the Lady Celia, to Archenland for safekeeping, and I copied it from the original, which is still in Anvard."

"When?"

"I saw it my first visit to Anvard, and told you of it in one of my letters, but those were the days you wouldn't look twice at a book," Susan teased gently. "But I copied it when—do you remember when King Aran and I called things off?"

"Yes."_ But why—oh_. "He wasn't _ready to be a Narnian King_," she said softly, the same words Susan had offered as oblique explanation of why she'd refused an offer of marriage from the king who seemed in every way the best match in the Eastern Sea.

Susan nodded, and then handed her more papers, brisk again. "The rest of my notes, on the sundry rituals and traditions, are also from then. I inquired of a few discreet counselors. Timeseer was quite nostalgic about it all, saying, 'Well do I recall answering the self-same questions from your grandmother, Good Queen Aletha before the Winter.'"

Lucy looked thoughtful and bent to peruse the rest of the notes.

* * *

At the noon meal, Peter and Edmund were just as pleased as Susan, but Lucy had little to say, thinking again on Lady Branwen's words. She followed Edmund from the table afterwards and curled up on his loveseat (Edmund always had the most comfortable furniture in his office).

"Can I talk to you?"

"Certainly. What's on your mind?"

"You're not busy or anything? I don't want to interrupt."

"Anything to put off my reunion with _Laws and Litigations of the Eastern Isles: Nine Centuries of Insular Jurisprudence_." He lifted a very dry-looking tome from his desk and let it fall back with a dull thunk.

Lucy made a face, and he came to sit next to her. "What is it? You were quiet at lunch."

She thought carefully, trying to put her unease into words, and he laid a reassuring hand on her fidgeting ones.

"Just spit it out, little sis."

She blurted out what Lady Branwen had said to her. "I've been thinking on it ever since. Surely she doesn't resent me for taking her son away? Or does she think that I am not good enough for Carl?"

Branwen's words struck something in Edmund, and he turned quiet, too. It was a minute before he spoke, slowly. "I don't think that's quite it. It might be a little; I suppose all parents want only the best for their children, and of course nobody can ever live up to all of that. Remember how thoroughly Mrs. Twinkletacks interrogated all of Nellie's potential mates?"

This brought the faintest of smiles to Lucy's face. "Well, she did have good reason. Nobody wants a son-in-law who will eat the grandchildren." This was an unpleasant instinct of the male Hedgehogs left over from the Winter.

"I shall definitely put that in the contract: _no eating the offspring_." Edmund gave her a sardonic look, and she laughed in spite of herself.

"Still, you would think—well, I'm not saying I'm a _splendid_ match—but wouldn't most mothers be glad if their son fell in love with a Queen? And she loved him back? It's practically a fairy tale."

"Lucy . . . " Edmund grew serious once more. "That's just it. You're the Queen, and Carl is your subject. It's all very well in the stories, but in truth, you have a great responsibility in your dealings with him. He is sworn to obey you and you are sworn to protect him."

"Well of course—I would do anything for him. Anything in my power."

"Your power over him is what Branwen is worried about," said Edmund, very gently. "You are older than he, and Carl is a good and simple man who has never been beyond Archenland."

Lucy gasped and dug in her pocket for Susan's notes. "She thinks he is merely besotted with me—oh dear, he says I'm the only woman he's ever loved, and she thinks I'm just treating him as a willing consort on which to get an heir, like Drake did to Aletha." Feeling sick, she found the right page and thrust it at Edmund. "It's not like that—he's loved me for years—he loved me first—oh, but what if I'm assuming this is what he wants? what if he feels he must continue loving me because I am his Queen?" She hadn't realized it in the attic when she was half-asleep on her feet, but now that she considered her words, _she'd_ almost been the one to ask _him_.

Edmund looked up from Aletha's writing. His face was grave. "It isn't very likely, but yes, it is possible."

"Do you think he thinks he must marry me just because I want him to?" She didn't think she could bear that.

"I don't think he does," said Edmund slowly. "But you owe him the right to refuse you, freely and without consequence. He needs to be certain he loves you as a woman, that he loves Lucy and not just his Queen—and that if he does not, he may walk away. And if he does, you must let him."

The idea wrenched viscerally, but Lucy nodded. She did not want a subject's devotion or fealty or even the whole-hearted adoration that so many Narnians gave. She wanted a mate, a partner, an equal. _Someone to hunt with and to raise Pups with, someone you can lie next to on a rug by a fire with your head on his back and his nose in your ear,_ the Wolves had told her years before, describing what she should look for in a man, and the words were truer than she'd then realized. But if he did not feel the same way . . . then she must let him go.

"Thank you," she whispered to Edmund, squeezing his hand for courage and getting up.

* * *

She tumbled down the spiral staircase—if she didn't go immediately, she would lose her nerve—and out to the stable. Ashtiel gave her a baleful look of _Didn't we just get back_? and she made herself slow down to pat his nose and tack him him calmly, steadily, so he would not become as agitated as she was. Even so, he held his breath when she cinched the saddle on, and she had to knee him twice in the gut before the girths tightened to their proper notches. Then it was a hop and a swing, and they were clopping across the courtyard and through the gates, nodding to the guards, and she nudged Ashtiel to a trot.

West until the coast curved around and they'd reached the mainland, then carefully aboard Reedywhistle's raft, and Ashtiel stood stiff-legged as the Wiggle ferried them across. They stepped ashore and were off, setting a steady canter for North and Carl. This side of the River was mostly fields—oats and barley and flax—but Ashtiel threaded his way neatly among them and out beyond into grassy meadows that smelled of spring sunshine and seasalt. The shore on their right grew steeper, until after a league there was no beach left at all, for the shore fell abruptly off a short cliff and into the water.

Just a mile longer, and the small Keep in the distance grew into a four-storey stone castle with a lean-to against the side, chickens pecking in the yard, and cows grazing beyond. Only the cat took notice of her as she rode up and quietly put Ashtiel in his stall, giving him half a scoop of grain and a wisp of hay, and the cat was too polite to say anything. Sam and David, the plow-horses, were in the barn (and so were the new calves, more confident now about walking but still liable to get their legs mixed up and tumble on their noses) but Tangle and Mossy were not, so the twins must have gone riding.

She went out the other door, and there _he_ was, sprawled under the big willow tree on the near bank, reading. He looked up, and his face lighted.

"Lucy!" He set the book aside and jumped up, easy on his feet as he opened his arms to greet her. "I did not expect you back so soon, but I am glad—" Then he caught sight of her expression. "What's wrong, love?"

"Nothing—nothing's wrong." Lucy shivered. "I need to talk to you, and I need you to tell me something honestly."

"Oh."

"Carl, _don't_ look like that. Please, I—"

"Of course, Lucy. Whatever you say to me, I will listen."

He was breaking her heart. She had to get it all out, _now._ "I love you because you are you, because you are _Carl_, country knight and all, and if I lost everything else I would love you still, and I love you enough to—to—let you go. If I must," she added.

All the light went out of his face. "If that is what you feel you must do . . . "

Lucy seized his hands. "No, _no_._ Your_ choice. I'm making a terrible mess of this, but oh, Carl, I don't want just your devotion, your fealty, or your allegiance, and if I were not your Queen—if I were just a woman like any other—and you might choose whomever you would . . ."

"I would choose _you_, Lucy." Carl's voice was fervent. "I loved you first as my friend, dearest, and then as my sweetest dream, and finally as my heart's desire."

Lucy felt herself flush all over with a flood of returning happiness. There was no mistaking the earnest declaration as anything but the utter truth. "And if you were to choose any path for us this year—to wait, or court, or wed—"

"I would wed you this very day, if I could," he murmured. "I know my own mind, and my own heart, and when once I have decided something I do not waver. As long as you will have me, I am yours."

Then Lucy could not keep herself from jumping into his arms. Why had she worried? Carl was like her, and Lucy herself was always very sure of what she wanted once she'd made up her mind. And right now, all she wanted was him. "Oh, I wish," she said wistfully to the front of his shirt, "I wish we _could_ be married today."

"Why don't we?" he said suddenly, looking down at her. "Father should arrive soon. We'll ride to Paravel and perform the Anvil ceremony at dawn—though perhaps you'll want to change your dress." His eyes twinkled at her, for in all the excitement of riding back and forth she was still in Elinda's old borrowed smock.

"But we _can't_," she almost wailed, pulling away. "All the Narnians will want us to be bonded according to their own traditions, and there's _dozens_ of them!"

"Of course there are." He thought for a moment. "Surely it doesn't matter which order we go in, does it?"

"It does," said Lucy glumly, plopping down on the grass. "The Anvil ceremony must be the very last one."

"But in the meantime . . . "

She dug in her capacious pockets again for Susan's notes, and the list seemed twice as long as when she'd scanned it in Susan's office. Carl of all people understood the importance of healthy births, favorable crops, and a good season, and he'd lived in Narnia long enough to understand when she explained that the magic of the summer at its fullest, combined with the magic of a Queen being wedded to her bondmate, made wonderful things happen. "Then of course we must wait," he said, "for Midsummer Day and Gretna Green."

She gave him a slow, shy smile. "And then, neither man nor beast may separate us."

He smiled back at her, a lopsided grin that made one corner of his mouth lift and her heart beat just a little faster. "That day will fill my dreams, dearest."

He gathered her to him and kissed her, and she closed her eyes, deliriously happy, for his sinewy arms were about her and he smelled of the hay they'd put up together last fall, of the old books of poetry he'd read to her in the long winter evenings by the fire, of Branwen's scented soap and of spring sunshine. His still-sparse beard tickled her face and stirred something previously unwoken in her, something that made her want to skip and dance and fly and clench her fists and sing; it made her want to lie down in the grass and never leave his arms.

"And _that_," said Carl, several minutes later, "is how much I love my Queen."

Her delighted smile was cut short by an enormous, unstoppable yawn. "I—ah—sorry."

He smiled back and kissed her forehead. "Shh. It's all right. Go on and sleep."

When Lord Bearsclaw arrived home an hour later with two particularly fine new cows, he found Queen Lucy curled under the willow tree, asleep in a borrowed dress and stained bloomers, her head cradled in his eldest son's lap.

* * *

AN: I would say that it is, of course, all Starbrow's fault—except that it stopped being her fault a good long time ago. She wrote the last two scenes, Lucy's conversations with Edmund and Carl, and I apologize for the egregious liberties I took incorporating them, especially with, ahem, certain passages. I hope the end result is satisfactory, and I'm sorry for being such a bundle of contradictions.

Many, many thanks to Starbrow for instigating, to rthstewart for encouraging, to Laura Andrews for pitchfork-threatening, to WingedFlight and Struthious for squealing, and to WritingMum for liking.

To be continued._  
_


	2. Chapter 2

_My lady gave me a tiger,  
A sleek and splendid tiger,  
A striped and _shining _tiger,  
All under the leaves of life._  
~ Dorothy Sayers, from _Busman's Honeymoon_

_Mary turned back to Lucy. "And why should I be glad we received Narnian gifts of performances, poetry, fertility statues and liquor that doubles as paint stripper, but that these wedding presents did not come with the requirement that we perform Narnian bonding ceremonies?"  
"You get to wear clothes," Edmund said.  
_~ Rthstewart

_Now birdseed scattered falling makes again the summer  
burning with leaves, bringing the pollen grain,  
the rain falling like seed, the firseed fallen  
the honey thick in trees and the smell of rain  
and the bird crying alone. I for my lover  
cook magic over woodfires to call him home._

_If he will come to me with the smell of  
woodsmoke and he will come to me with the burning of  
leaves and the slow smoke upward in the night,  
he will have his skin dappled with the shadows of leaves  
faunskin; he will be spotted like the spotted cat  
under the turning of leaves dark and bright.  
_~ Joy Davidman, "Sorceress Eclogue"

* * *

The sun was over the mountains when Lucy awoke, deep in the shadow of the willow-trunk. Her dress was rumpled but not grass-stained, her cheek was textured with the imprint of the ground, and there was sleep in her eyes. As she yawned, she remembered Carl getting up and hushing her when she stirred—she'd fallen asleep in his arms—he'd been there with her—they'd kissed—he loved her—she loved him—and very soon they would be mate-bonded. A warm glow spread over her, a smile that burned away the fog of sleep, and she picked herself up to go find her betrothed.

He was sitting at the kitchen table with his mother and father, earnest-faced, and they fell silent when Lucy pushed the door open.

"Oh—" she said, the happiness fading, but Lady Branwen rose from her seat and came to curtsy.

"Forgive me, my Queen, for doubting your affection for my son."

Lucy blinked and glanced at Carl, automatically dipping her head in acknowledgement but still cobwebby from her nap.

Lord Carl pushed back his chair with a dull wooden sound and bowed. He was a man of few words, but radiated quiet happiness. "Queen Lucy."

"Carl hath made all plain," Branwen continued, "and I wish you twain all joy and the richest blessings of Aslan upon your union."

"I thank thee, Lady Bearsclaw," said Lucy. Really, the way Branwen used high speech affectionately was difficult even when Lucy was fully awake, but she hadn't been a Queen for sixteen years without learning to switch between formal and informal registers, even if she would never be quite so fluent as Susan at the florid court language.

At any rate, the sleep was out of her eyes and her happiness bubbled up, irrepressible now. She seized Branwen's hands. "It will take us a month or more to complete the ceremonies of Narnia, so we shan't have the anvil bonding until Midsummer, and it seems a horrid long time to wait, but there shall be nothing but parties and feasts from now to then, and I do hope you will all join in the merriment."

"With good will," put in Lord Carl, and the twinkle in his eyes was very like her Carl's.

"And if there are any Archen customs—besides the handfasting, which of course we shall do—"

It was Branwen's turn to look pleasantly startled. "There is an _argoad_," she said slowly, speaking of the headdress worn by traditional Archen ladies, "of fine lace handworked in linen thread, which my mothers have handed down, one to the next, since the days of Daen the Short. 'Twas worn by my daughter Elinda on the day she was wed, as I wore it and my mother before me. Hast been as a daughter unto me, Queen Lucy, and if—"

Lucy's nose prickled, and she threw her arms around Branwen. "I would be _honored." _said Lucy. Lady Branwen had relaxed into familiar speech again and Carl was grinning at her and she was just so very _glad_.

For all the time she'd spent at the Keep of late, It had been too long since Lucy had thought to hug Lady Branwen, who always smelled of lavender and warm bread. Then Lord Carl swept her up in an embrace—as he had when she was ten years old and tumbled out of the willow tree on top of the baby swallow she was trying to put back in its nest. "Not so little any more, dear Lucy, but a woman grown," he murmured.

Everything was back as it should be, even down to Lady Branwen exclaiming "The cake!" before the moment could grow cloying, and then there was a flurry of table-setting and children-calling and face-washing and hair-smoothing. Then it was supper at the Keep, noisy as ever with Dan and Nate scuffling on their bench, Col and Colin assuming an uninvolved air while egging them on, and Molly watching the scene with amusement as Emma told her softly of the brown hen's latest chicks. (Bouncer bleated mournfully from the lean-to—he was Emma's new cosset lamb, a fact which the twins found dreadfully mortifying.) Lord Carl sat back and spread more butter on his scone and told all about his cattle-trading in Galma, and for all Branwen's despair over her children's manners she laughed and talked as much as anyone; but Lucy sat beside Carl and said little, content in her joy.

* * *

_Peace and abundance to Narnians everywhere! I, Peter, High King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, Emperor of the Lone Islands, and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Table greet you with all joy._

_Let it be known throughout the realm, from Cair Paravel on the Eastern Sea to the Lamppost and Caldron Pool in the West, from the highest eyrie to the deepest mine, that our beloved sister Lucy, Queen of Narnia, Duchess of Warrens and Plains, Keeper of the Healing Cordial, and Lady of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, hath pledged her troth to Carl Carlson of Bearclaw Keep, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion, and so he to her._

_Let this season be one of feasting and celebration throughout the land, as our royal sister and her betrothed carry out the bondings of land and water, beast and bird, cave and marsh__, each according to their kind__; and thereafter let all Narnia convene at the Fords of Beruna this Midsummer's Day to come, to witness the joining of our royal sister and her beloved as Queen and Consort in the Ceremony of Gretna Green._

_Given with great joy at our seat in Cair Paravel, a sevennight after the sixteenth May Day of our rule._

* * *

Lucy and Carl began their first bonding by visiting the Rabbits of the Great Warrens, northwest of Paravel, where a Doe called Mother Lopears began their education in bunnycode.

"Now, mum, what d'you know about Rabbit thumping?

"I learned a great deal when I was a girl, but I'm ashamed to confess I've forgotten most of it. The Princess Elinda and I used to tap messages to each other."

"Oh!" said Carl.

"Milord?"

"Just that Elinda taught me a bit, and, well—" He smacked the ground with the heel of his hand, _thum, thum, thumpity-thum._

The Rabbit's ears twitched. "Seems you remember some after all."

"Oi, who're you calling a squirrelhead?" called a large Buck, sticking his head out of a bolthole. "Oh, it's you."

Lucy hadn't remembered the meaning of the childish insult Carl had rapped out, but of course the whole Warren knew they were there. The Buck hopped lazily toward them—one might almost say he dribbled down the slope—stopping a few feet away to look them over and scratch at his chin with a long toenail.

It was an interesting afternoon.

* * *

"Now, the Dumb Rabbits are ill-mannered in such things," said Mother Lopears when they'd gotten the hang of lying on their stomachs and thumping out bunnycode with their hands

"Yeah, when they mate, it's over in less time than it takes to shake a whisker at a fox," said the Buck—Yellowtooth.

"But Aslan made us Talking Rabbits," went on Lopears impertubably, "and with speech we learned to love."

"It's also good for other things," said the Buck. "Like—" He thumped with his hind legs, and Lucy tilted her head to one side to translate. _Your . . . haunches . . . are as round—_

"Yellowtooth!" Lopears broke in with a smack of her foot. "Don't interrupt me!"

"So," said Carl with a scholarly expression, "I could say—_your nose twitches when you listen, love_—"

"Exactly, m'kit," cried the Buck. "And then she might say—go on, Queen Lucy, give it a go."

She looked down, suddenly shy. _Your whiskers are very manly._

"Very nice, dear, but a Rabbit wouldn't say _manly."_

"Try _your whiskers make my haunches quiver," _added Yellowtooth unhelpfully, and Lucy's face flamed.

Mother Lopears _tch_-ed at him. "That comes _later. _You begin with flirty things and work up to invitations to mate after a day or two. Go ahead, milord."

Carl squeezed Lucy's hand. _I love you._

_I love you, too._

* * *

Edmund consulted his histories and drew up pages of contracts. Susan fielded requests from Narnians for various ceremonies. Peter walked about beaming at all and sundry, even though he'd taken on more than his share of day-to-day duties—and Lucy could be seen in the most unexpected places, poring over a List in Susan's handwriting."Have you seen Carl?" was the question of the hour, surpassed only by "Have you seen Lucy?"

They spat in their hands to shake, like the Badgers, and licked each other to embrace the new scent of not-self, as the Hedgehogs did. Lucy egged Carl on as he crowed and swaggered over her for the Peacock ceremony, feeling a shiver as he claimed her and swelling with his delighted smile when she claimed him. She scampered away from him up and down willing Trees with Squirrels chattering at them all morning (Zeteb the Mongoose watched them from a branch, muttering that they should giggle more, wiggle more) and sat in a Tree all afternoon, singing to each other, as the Songbirds sighed and twittered around them.

Lucy teased him for the streaks left on his face after they built a nest together and giggled (per Zeteb's instructions, of course) when he took her face in his still-muddy hands to kiss her; then, as they furnished an apartment in Cair Paravel for themselves, she spun visions of their future together.

But when the rooms were ready and Carl said, "Shall we have a little Lucy by next May Day, then?" she went very still in the crook of his arm.

Next May Day? Had it been less than a year since she rode to war in chain mail, trousers, and boots, content to roll in a bedroll at the end of the march and sneak her hand into Edmund's when she couldn't sleep, pestering him with the easy familiarity of a little sister and discussing battle arrangements at midnight until he told her to do whatever she liked, as long as she let him sleep. She yelled louder than any of the archers under her in the Siege of Anvard, and kissed Lune when it was over, saying that yes, _of course_ she would see to Aravis's apartments, and told again the story of how she and her brothers and sister first came to Narnia. And she thought to herself as the musicians fiddled and the poet sang that there could be nothing better than sitting in the warm summer moonlight, laughing until her sides ached—or watching the wonder in Lune's eyes as he gazed at the eager upturned face of his new-found son.

Had it been only an autumn and a spring since that Summer Festival? when Carl got up the courage to say that his time in Anvard had only deepened his tongue-tied feelings, and well, that is to say—he loved her. And she stared at him in uncomprehending disbelief, fumbling for the well-worn words of polite rebuff, and found that they did not come.

So much had happened since that she could hardly remember the woman she had been before—before she spent the autumn watching him, before she tripped and caught his snowball full in her face at the first snow dance, before her eyes flew open and she gasped at the sudden drenching of—love.

In the dizzying awakening of spring, when each day brought some unfolding wonder, the greatest of all was that Carl was beside her to revel with her in the year's new joys—and somehow she forgot, amidst the contracts and gifts, all the bondings and blessings for the young who of course would come next—somehow she forgot just what those young meant. She'd hardly ever thought of, well, _motherhood_

"Lucy?"

"Hm?"

"You went away for a moment—what are you thinking?"

She nestled closer in his arm. "The Narnians will be very glad of it. Babies, I mean."

"What you once called _heirs and all that nonsense_?"

She looked up at him quickly. "You—how do you remember that?"

"I remember."

"But that was years—"

He kissed her. "Mother sent me to fetch you and Elinda from the hayloft, remember? And you—" another kiss "—my dear, have never been the quietest storyteller."

"Mm. Does your mother mind that we plan to displace her first grandchild from the direct line of succession?"

"You mean Glen?" Carl laughed. "I think Mother just wants more grandchildren, no matter who is King or Queen—and anyhow, it isn't Mother's opinion on future children I care about. It's yours. Narnia already has an heir." He stroked her shoulder thoughtfully. "Lucy, what do _you_ want?"

This was the first time she had ever seriously considered the prospect of a child. _Her_ child. Not a cub or a kit or a pup to be washed and nudged to its feet; a real, live, naked Human baby with his head lolling back and his fists waving, who wouldn't even learn to walk for a whole _year_. Her baby. Hers and Carl's.

She remembered the first time she helped deliver a Human child and laid the infant on his mother's chest and watched the joy in her eyes as he nursed for the first time. How could she ever bear such a great and terrifying thing?

"I don't know how to be a mother!" she burst out. "I can't even remember my own mother—I think I remember her singing to me, but that might just be Susan. Susan always sounded most like her, you know, and she remembers her, but I—" She sniffed and buried her face in his chest.

He smoothed her hair, holding her close. "I have father and mother both and I'm _still_ scared to be a father myself! Dearest Lucy, I wish I could meet your mother, too . . . knowing you, she must have been _wonderful."_

She smiled a little into his shirt.

"You didn't know how to be a Queen, either, when you started, which was why Aslan gave you advisors to help."

"I hardly remember _not _being Queen. I remember learning, though . . . "

"See? You won't be alone."

"There are so many good mothers in the world," she mused. "Mrs. Beaver, Queen Ilene, Lady Gree, yours—"

"And I shall be beside you, as your mate and our children's father." He drew her down to sit beside him on the wide, inviting bed, and she curled into him with a sigh. "We will learn together, and you will be a wonderfully fierce mother, like the Lionesses and Bears."

"Lionesses and Bears drive their mates away," she countered. "I want to keep you around for a while yet."

"Wolves, then. _They_ have five pups at a go, shall we try that?" His eyes twinkled at her.

"Let's have them one at a time, as Aslan sends, and the Rabbits will have a fit."

"Good idea. For my part," (he was running his fingers up her arm in a very distracting way) "I shall be glad to provide you with as many heirs as _we _desire, and risk Yellowtooth's wrath as long as you don't play the Lioness and send me away."

Catching his hand in hers and pressing a kiss to the palm, she said, "Never. Unless I pack you off for the afternoon with Little Carl in your pocket, like the Seahorses, so I can have a nap."

"Lucy? Carl?" came Susan's voice from the hall. "Finished yet? It's nearly suppertime."

"Little Carl?" he protested as Lucy got up. "Surely not another Little Carl!"

But she only stuck out her tongue at him, pulled the door open, and dashed away, so that he had to chase after her.

* * *

A crowd collected on Cair Paravel's southern beach at high noon a few days later. The humans of Paravel Village—those who, of the immigrants to Narnia in the last sixteen years, had settled near the castle—had heard of the Narnian rituals the Queen Lucy and her betrothed were performing and came to see one take place under their very noses.

"Foolish lot of goings-on there's been this sevenday," muttered Dubbin, the Dwarf smith. "Oughter give their word over an anvil and be done with it." He stood a little apart, with his apprentices, wiping his hands on his leather apron, watching the castle hobs and brownies as they skipped in a ring on the sand. The Dogs and Tigers splashed at the edge of the surf, under the cool gaze of Ocellus the Leopard, Captain of the Royal Guard, and Chui, his sometimes-mate, who had replaced the late Fleetfoot as second-in-command.

The buzz of conversation died as Queen Lucy and Sir Carl separated from the knot of family members and guards and walked down the sand together. Women shaded their eyes to see as the couple waded into the glittering waves, up to their waists, where a single, ancient mermaid waited, head and shoulders above the water. They bowed their heads for her hands in blessing, and the watchers hushed; then the mermaid vanished under the water and Queen Lucy and Sir Carl sank in after her.

After that, there was exceedingly little to see, only the sun reflecting off the breaking waves, but few of the watchers went home.

Below, in a rushing, watery silence, Lucy and Carl swam hand-in-hand. Everything was slower here, in the flickering half-light of the sea, with the merfolk surrounding and their white garments floating about them. Her hair billowed around her face and a sense of utter weightlessness pressed in on her so that she was dimly surprised she could breathe, but most of her mind was taken up with the wonders on every side.

In the distance the water shaded away into the purpley-blue of the dark ocean deeps, but here the light filtered down through forests of seaweed and silvery fish-schools, and she thought she could hear strands of calls like song. It made her think of deep and wild magic, just as did the darknight singing of the stars, but this underwater music was somehow thick and fathomless where the starsong was clear and lofty, and she squeezed his hand.

He squeezed back, just as the merfolk halted, having brought them to a circle of standing stones on the sandy sea floor . . .

* * *

Some hours later, Lucy and Carl rose up out of the water, breathless and dripping with seaweed, and splashed toward shore. Lucy shivered as she reentered the constricting air, the afternoon sun doing little to warm the chill of the long white thing that clung wetly to her hips and breasts and stomach. She pushed her streaming hair out of her face, hearing the cheers going up from the assembled Narnians, wishing she and Carl could have stayed in the sea forever or that the beach could be empty. Then they could build a driftwood fire and huddle around it, slowly drying stiff with salt, and they could linger as the sun set, and talk, laughing softly, of nothing in particular, piecing together the raveled bits of wordless song they still remembered.

But the beach was not empty, and it was forbidden to speak of the customs of the Merfolk under the sea. So Lucy wrapped up all that had happened within the ring of stones—every memory, every gesture, each deep and sea-salty feeling—tied it with a strand of seaweed, and tucked it away in a secret corner of herself. There would come a time to take all that out and set it free, but for now—

She moved closer to Carl, certain from the look in his eyes that he, too, was remembering the way they had—

_Not yet_.

Reluctantly, she broke away from his handclasp and ran up the beach, tugging irritably at her shift when it tangled around her feet and tripped her.

"What's next?" she asked, shaking not entirely from cold as Susan threw a towel around her and handed her a dressing gown.

"Come inside and get warmed up first, dearies," said Mrs. Twinkletacks. "There's hot tea waiting."

Carl came up, panting.

"I'm warm enough now," she said. "What else do we have to do?"

* * *

Hunting was next on the list (as they lacked the wings to fulfill the Eagles' wish for death spirals from the clouds) but it took awhile to agree on the exact protocol. The Lions wanted Lucy to hunt and bring Carl the freshly-killed deer, then wait as he ate his fill. Sootquill the Owl wanted _Carl _to bring _Lucy_ dead mice and added that he should preen her feathers. Bristletip and Snowpaws, the alphas of the Cairn Wolfpack, said they ought to hunt together and groom each other and sleep curled round each other like two puppies. This last suggestion won Carl's enthusiastic vote, and the Lions and Owls agreed it would do.

"And feed each other!" said Bristletip. "He should feed you from his own mouth. What else will you do," he said to Carl, "when she has a den full of pups and can hardly lift her own head to eat, let alone go hunting?"

* * *

"But you simply _must _dance," said Chui the Leopardess, gliding up to Lucy as she saddled Ashtiel to go, a day or two later. Ashtiel, inured to Cats, Wolves, and Dragons by dint of long proximity to Lucy, regarded the Leopardess balefully but stood still; across the yard Mossy pranced away from Carl, ears laid back.

Chui flicked her tail. "If you must behave like Wolves, my Queen, I hope you will take a hair from the Leopards and do it with a whiff of refinement. Set your scent on the wind and call your mate with rasps and sways and yodeling yowls."

Lucy nodded and dashed inside for her perfume, choosing from among the mostly-unused bottles one with a seductive note, which she'd never worn at all.

* * *

The best rabbit-hunting, according to Carl, was beyond the Great Warrens, close to Knucker's Mere (Chrysophylax liked to have a dumb rabbit or two with his afternoon tea). Their honor guard of Carnivores didn't slow them down _much_, but it still took most of the day to get there. It was an hour to dusk when they arrived, so they tied their mounts sufficiently far away and crept forward through the long grass until they reached the hollow under the old hollow oak tree. There they lay flat, their bows strung and arrows ready, and they could see, upwind, the faint round openings in the low hill where the bunnies would come out at dusk. (Their audience stayed well back, further downwind, with the Dogs firmly admonished that if they scared away all the game they could just go home.)

"Now we wait," muttered Lucy.

"But we can talk." He reached for her hand and squeezed out one of Yellowtooth's lines in bunnycode.

"Carl!"

He laid a finger to his lips.

_But I don't have whiskers!_

_Fur? It's very fine fur._

_You have fur. On your face._

_Those are whiskers. _His eyes twinkled at her in merriment. _I saw Mrs. Callahan yesterday._

_Oh? _Mrs. Callahan was the Talking Cow who ruled the stables at Cair Paravel with a benevolently firm hoof.

_She pinned me to the wall when I went for Mossy and gave me a thorough inspection, humming to herself. At last she said I looked clean enough, and that if I wanted to sire calves with you I should be sure I told you how round and firm your udder is._

This took a few minutes to say in bunnycode, tapped out word by word. At the unexpected turn of the last sentence, Lucy felt a choking kind of laugh well up in her throat. _My udder?_

He grinned at her, slightly flushing. _She said not to worry that it's still rather small—it will fill out when the calves come._

Lucy peered down at herself. Well. She wasn't sure if that was a relief or a worry. _What did you say?_

He looked suddenly awkward. _I don't know. I escaped quick as I could._

She stuffed her fist in her mouth to stifle her giggles. There was an uncertain pause. _Sunset now, _she said, grateful for the diversion.

_Yes._

That precluded further conversation, as they had to bring their bows into position; rabbits took fright at the slightest movement and they would have to hold, drawn and motionless, until a target presented itself.

It was only a minute or two before an old doe hopped out, testing the air with twitching nose and ears. Lucy held perfectly still; the doe, satisfied with the safety, thumped her hind legs. Then the rest of the family emerged from doorways and hidey-holes, and scampered about on the green, nibbling at stems of grass and chasing one another.

"That one?" he breathed in the lowest possible whisper.

"Mmh." She sighted along the shaft at the plump, middling-sized rabbit not three yards away, sitting perfectly still, a long bare flower-stem disappearing into his jaws.

"Now." Both arrows flew together, twisting through the air toward their mark. The rest of the litter vanished in an eyeblink, leaving just the one, twitching into stillness on the green.

They got up, their backs cracking as they stretched.

"He's much smaller than a Talking Rabbit," she said, letting Carl pick up their kill.

"He is."

"When we first came to Narnia, I stopped eating meat. Beasts didn't talk where we came from," she added by way of explanation, drawing her dagger to cut out a square of turf for the firepit.

"But you eat meat now." It was a half-question.

"There was no food. That first summer, when the Midsummer feast ran out and the harvest was not yet ripe—no one starved, but—" There'd been berries and greens, and fish when they could catch them, but never quite enough to go all the way around, never quite enough to satisfy. "It was too early for nuts or grain, and we hadn't yet established trade with Archenland." She rocked back on her heels, digging her fingers into the earth, remembering the ache in her stomach, the despair of berry-hunting on slopes picked clean by birds and Birds. "One morning there was nothing in the castle to eat. Nothing at all. There weren't very many at Paravel right then—I don't remember why—just Mrs. Twinkletacks and us, and we couldn't eat acorns and Peter and Edmund couldn't catch any fish. Then Lobo, Bristletip's father, showed up at noon with a haunch of venison."

"And you ate it."

She looked away. Aslan had sent Lobo to bring it, Peter said. "He and his pack helped us hunt. I still don't like it, but it doesn't make me so sad anymore."

Carl fetched the horses and cleaned their catch, chopping off paws and head and expertly stripping away the skin. Lucy kindled a small, smokeless fire and then sharpened green sticks with her hunting knife; she liked pointy things better than bloody things. Conscious of a dozen or more Wolves and Dogs watching from the shadows of the trees, besides the Owls and Cats _in _the trees, they roasted strips of meat over the flame, burning their mouths when they tasted before the savory, smoky bits were cool enough.

"Oh!" said Carl suddenly. "I nearly forgot..." He blew on the skewered bit of rabbit meat, tested it with a finger, then bit into it. Holding it between his teeth, he leaned in and offered it to Lucy.

It was awkward until they figured out how to manage it, and rather messy even then, but at last she caught the strip when he swung it toward her and they nibbled their way toward the middle, letting the juice run down their chins and laughing when their eyes crossed. That was so much fun that they tried it again. Then they fed each other with their hands and licked fingers all around, and all in all it was quite dark by the time they finished.

Lucy would have been contented to sit by the fire until moonrise, poking it with their sticks and watching sparks dance up toward the bright stars above. But the green eyes of the Leopards shone out from the thicker dark of the trees, and Ocellus and Chui were among them. So, with a sigh, she drew the tiny vial from her pocket and wriggled out the stopper. A scent of musk and wildflowers rose up, layered with a sunny hint of dry grass. Carl watched with interest as she dabbed this on the insides of her wrists and the pulse points at her neck; then she rose, stretching langorously in the firelight, and began to dance, her movements catlike and sinuous. Around the campfire and around Carl she prowled, twining her scent with the smoke on the breeze, humming a song low in her throat, moving away, coming back.

Carl got up, only a little uncertain, reaching for her hands; she pulled away and drew him after her into the dance, into her song as it swelled into words.

_All through the forest I wander  
Night falls and I long for you  
Everything here in the woodland  
Shares my longing, too.  
Listen to the rhythm of the padded feet  
Stealing through the forest, hear her wild heart beat  
Searching for her love—and my heart repeats this cry—  
I need you_

Usually this song had drums underlying its driving pulse—drums and pipes and rhythmic wine-driven stamping. Tonight it was just her, just him, just her clear soprano and Carl's deeper bass humming underneath, just man and woman in the dark.

_Far in the distance hear the note  
That's born of a call in a savage throat  
Who waits a mate's reply—  
Listen to the moaning of the wind on her way  
Everything she touches, see it bend and sway  
Sing a pledge of love and send her on her way, that's why  
I need you.  
I need you._

She drew the last lines out into yowls, and from the watching trees Bristletip and all the Wolves howled back. The Owls hooted and the Leopards chuffed.

"But don't send me on my way," she whispered, letting him catch her at last and tumbling with him to the grass. "I'm no Leopardess and I couldn't bear it."

"I won't." He rolled off her and sat up. "Shall I preen your feathers for you now?"

They washed their hands and faces with water from the flask and found the comb in the saddlebags. Carl settled himself against the trunk of the oak and pulled her down in front of him where he could carefully comb the snarls from her long, curly hair, as gently as if he was currying the ticklish spot on Tangle's belly. She closed her eyes and relaxed into it, only moving to turn her head as he finished each section and moved on to the next. Piece by piece, he raveled out the knots from wearing it unbound all day, and then smoothed drops of coconut oil into the ends until they didn't lock up the moment they brushed against each other.

When he finished, she dropped her head back to look at him upside-down, and he went very still, reaching out to touch the long tender curve of her throat, then bending around and in for the tiniest, gentlest of nips. It was a gesture the Wolves particularly wanted—that she would allow herself to be vulnerable and utterly trusting before him. _Place your life between his jaws_, said Snowpaws, and _pledge to her your fealty, _said Bristletip.

He kissed the spot he'd nipped, and she pulled him down so she could curl around him, _like two littermates in a den_. He was so large and warm, and she buried her face in his shoulder, smelling woodsmoke and horse and sweat and _Carl._

"Carl," she whispered.

"My love?"

She felt oddly shy of words. "It's just that—Rabbits and Squirrels and Badgers and Songbirds and _Mongooses_—mongeese?—and Merfolk and Owls and Leopards and Wolves and—"

"Still a month to Midsummer," he muttered.

She lifted her head and listened with the whole-body stillness Chui had taught her: listened to the Trees whispering and the Owls hooting softly, listened to a pair of dumb raccoons grunting and churring in a tree across the meadow, listened to the spring magic pulsing through the earth like a faraway strand of music better felt than heard. It was softer now, the magic, with the first rush of wild life subdued that cracked ice and filled brooks—but still it ran underneath, building in quiet intensity, drawing all life inexorably on to Midsummer.

Lucy sighed and turned over, and as Carl wrapped his arms around her the Old Woman of the Moon smiled down through the oak leaves. In parts of Narnia they still called this the _Moon of Bliss_, a month of nightingale song and moonlight, a month for lovers spooning snugly together in the warm grass, safe under the gaze of watchful Owls, Wolves and Leopards; and their heartbeats thrummed louder than the magic.

* * *

That was not the only nighttime ritual they performed. A few nights later, an hour or so before midnight, she crept into his bedchamber, a Wiggle delegation flapping softly behind her. Her hands shook only a little as she drew back his bedclothes and lay down at his feet, her heart beating fast as she listened to his slow, even breathing. In the faint moonlight she just saw the shadows and lines of his body, but she clenched her fists to keep still all the same.

The curtain fluttered in the casement and he sat straight up, looking about wildly and grabbing for something to cover himself. "_Lucy_! Why are you here?"

"Spread your blanket over me, my love," she said in low but even tones, "for the night is drear and the wind howls around us."

He found the sheet and pulled it up to his chest, staring at her. "_Oh._ Right, then. Er." Carl leaned forward and scrabbled for the quilts in the dark, finally drawing one up and tucking it around them both, but then inching away as far as he could underneath the shared blanket. Lucy wished very much he had come the opposite direction instead of scrunching himself into the corner.

"Can't be a good sign if already they're sleeping on opposite ends of the bedroll," muttered one of the Wiggles.

"Oh, do stop," she snapped, her patience wearing out as she longed to join Carl on his end. "Tell Timeseer, if you'd be so kind, that we'll be along shortly."

The Wiggles flapped away, muttering, and there was a very, _very _awkward moment of not looking at each other in the dark.

"Err."

"Right, then," she said, trying to be as brisk as Susan would be, for under the quilt she had a whole nightgown on and he only a sheet. "I'll meet you at the stairs."

"Clothes?"

"All of them." She was not brisk in the slightest. Even as far away as he could go, there was only an arm's length between her and . . .

She fled, forgetting to leave his blanket behind.

* * *

A few minutes later they descended the stairs together, in silence, and so to the beach, where the prophets of the Centaur _Witena _waited to read the stars for them and watch them mingle two linen pouches of salt into one unbreakable vow.

The sea lapped at the sand, rushing, receding, never changing, never still. Away up on the mainland the Dryads still sang softly, windily, as they dozed. The sand was cool underfoot, and overhead the Stars moved in their stately dance, as changelessly shifting as the sea, and Lucy strained but could not quite hear their ceaseless song any more than she could feel her own blood as it ran through her veins.

In the moonlight, the Witena was a curve of dark shapes, tall and motionless as a circle of stones. Starshine gleamed faintly on Timeseer's long white hair as they drew near him, and the half-circle closed around them. Lucy knelt, feeling the sand shift under her knees through the linen of her gown; and she sensed the shape of Carl kneeling beside her, their arms not quite touching.

The breeze felt suddenly cool on her cheeks as she remembered how he'd looked asleep, unconscious of himself, stirring in the sudden draft, his tangled hair falling in his eyes. She'd seen men naked before—and there were certain old Archen paintings—and of course Satyrs never wore anything but their hair, nor Centaurs or Wolves, and Narnians generally talked with unblushing frankness about all parts of life—so why was she so inexplicably shy around Carl? and why did that glimpse of him snatch the breath from her lungs or make her stomach drop as if she stood on the very edge of a cliff, dizzy with the height, the thrill vibrating through her stronger than the beat of Chrysophylax's wings.

But there, Timeseer was speaking and she blushed at her roving, inattentive mind.

"As long as the waves wash the shore and as long as the unutterable words remain carved into the living rock of the fire-stones where they stand on Secret Hill and as long as the great lords of the sky wheel in their dance, so long shall this covenant endure. Even if Beasts forget and Dwarfs forsake their mines, even if Sons of Adam again turn weak-willed and tyrannous and Centaurs cease to look up; even so the Deep Magic shall endure, as the Emperor Beyond the Sea declared, from the dawn of time until the stars fall from heaven and the moon rises blood-red. Consider then, within your secret selves, before you do this thing."

Lucy had read an outline of the Centaur ceremony the day before with Carl, but that was nothing like hearing the warning spoken at midnight in words like great and shining castles. She shivered. What if it were all wrong? What if she couldn't do it, couldn't be a mother, couldn't be a the forever-bonded mate Carl deserved? She might be Queen but she would never be Lady Branwen, gently deferring to her husband's judgement, and—what if Carl wanted that? What if Carl expected that? Their children—their daughters would never be prim Archen maidens—goodness, she herself couldn't handle a shuttle for loom or tatting, though she could knit socks if she had to.

No, she would teach her daughters to ride and shoot and set bones and deliver calves, and if they wanted to be knights they would jolly well be knights and no one would be more pleased than Lucy herself. As for sons, she would teach them how to stitch wounds and hit a target at two hundred paces and knit their own socks. She knew she could do those things; she knew she could teach them, but what about greater things? Could she teach them to be wise, or how to love Aslan? Could she explain the use of Cordial and Knife, mercy and judgement, when to wound and when to heal? How would she instill the duty of dancing with the nymphs for the harvest, the honor of going without when the land hungered?

How could she make a promise for hundreds of years and all of time when she'd not even lived a quarter century? How could Carl? Edmund's words dashed through her mind, and she was painfully aware of the four years' difference in their ages and the heap of traveling she'd done. The criss-crossing of Narnia. The visits to Archenland. The sailing voyages across the sea, back and forth among the island countries of the East. The flights to Telmar. The quest she'd undertaken across the Great Desert. For years she'd watched the scoundrels, fools, and honest men who came to court her sister, for years she'd danced with suitors of her own and read the poetry they gave her and turned them away, one by one. She loved none of them, only Carl—but he—how many women had he seen in his life? How could she be sure his feelings for her would not change, that she was the only one he _could_ ever love? What if he met a slithy Terebinthian lady in a year or seven and realized that he'd never loved Lucy at all? that it was just a childish infatuation?

All this flashed through her mind in a very few moments, and then beside her Carl's voice, quiet against the surf, was saying, "I have considered. I will do this thing."

Then there was a little space again and the waves ran up the sand and fell away. All at once Lucy knew she was being absurd.

She raised her head, filling her chest with the salty air, and spoke as Carl had.

Then the nine Witena drew back again into a half-circle, and like a dance Lucy and Carl rose to their feet and went to opposite ends of the line. Lucy dipped a courtesy before the first Witan and took the linen pouch she offered. A step to the right brought her before the next, whose beard massed dark on his chest, and she honored him as well.

"Salt," the bearded Centaur intoned, presenting a wooden bowlful. "Drawn by fire from the waters of the sea."

She stood on tiptoe to take a fistful and poured the coarse grains from her hand into her bag; she could hear Carl at the other end of the line doing likewise. Another step to the right, and the next bowl was held by an old grey Centauride.

"Sand." Lucy scooped some out; it was soft and powdery-fine and whiter than the salt in the dark. "Gathered from the very shore on which we stand, the easternmost point of Narnia." It trickled through her fingers and ran down in among the salt.

Lucy dipped and stepped, drawing out her movements until they were measured and starlike. A third bowl was before her, held by a tall Centaur who lowered it so she could see the smooth round pebbles within that sparkled and shone even in the dark. She caught her breath.

"Starstone," said the tall Witan in a voice both glad and grave. "From sea and sky at once. For as the lords and ladies of the heavens move in their holy dance, they show the tale of all the world for those who understand. Parts of the worldtale are joyful, but not all. At times the Stars weep in the figures of their dance, and the tears they shed fall flaming through the upper air, into the sea, and wash ashore still shining with the inward light of their birth. Take sparingly, Queen Lucy, for 'tis uncommon in these days of peace."

She looked at it for a moment at the softly shining tears, so pricelessly beautiful and sad, and then took three. One by one they dropped from her fingers into the sand and salt, and she stirred all to blend them.

She turned, and there was Carl, holding his pouch in both hands. Together they presented the pouches to Timeseer, who nodded and brought forth a double-large linen bag, holding the mouth open. Slowly, slowly, Lucy tipped up her pouch, mirroring Carl, and two thin streams of sand and salt fell into the larger bag, punctuated by the starstones plopping in.

"Thus you swear yourselves one to another," said Timeseer, "until each grain of sand and salt poured by Lucy the Queen is once more separated from every grain poured by Carl the King Consort."

"I swear," said Carl, and "I swear," said Lucy, and the sand and salt and the tears of the Stars mingled, never to be parted.

With those words, something slotted into place and another strand of magic knit itself between them. They found that their fingers were entwined, their arms were clasped about each other's waists, their lips met—and _oh_ the throb of happiness, yearning to press closer and closer to each other until bodies, hearts and souls tangled into one, for the oath was sworn in salt and star-tears, and did it always ache this much to love and be confined in separate bodies?

One by one the Centaurs and Centaurides of the Witena took their leave, but lover and beloved stayed out with the sand and the rushing waves until moonset.

* * *

AN: Lucy's song is adapted from "Chant of the Plains," by Bob Nolan. Lucy in trousers, chain mail, and boots, pestering Edmund the night before the Siege of Anvard, is borrowed from Starbrow's delightful "What the Bards Forgot," one of my favorite oneshots EVER; and Zeteb the Mongoose is stolen with permission from WingedFlight. More notes will be forthcoming on my LJ.

With deep gratitude and cookies for Starbrow and Rthstewart, who refused to settle for decent enough, who called me out on insincerity and lack of follow-through, and who picked out the lines that jarred and made me expand them until, hopefully, they make more sense.

Part Three to follow.


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